


Differentials Between Assets and Agents

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 07:36:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4616820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is one of the weirdest meals Maria’s ever had in a safehouse: takeout brought to her by the Winter Soldier, who appears to have decided she needs looking after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Differentials Between Assets and Agents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



Maria’s not sure what to make of Steve standing in her office, staring out the window and not looking around as she closes the door behind her.

“What are you doing, putting Bucky on the active list?”

She takes a moment to move around her desk, to gather her thoughts, to connect the dots. “Good morning to you, too, Captain. I’m using Bucky’s considerable field skills in an appropriate manner.”

“The way HYDRA did?”

Her gaze fixes on him, and after a moment he has the grace to look away. “No.” The acid in her throat is sharp and bitter, but she keeps her voice cool and calm. “The way he agreed to have his skills used when he came to see me about joining the Avengers.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“Were you planning to refuse him?”

“No. But as leader of the Avengers, it’s my right to know.”

“Then it was his responsibility to tell you.” Maria sits down in her chair, not particularly caring if this means Steve can look down on her. She’s used to being considered lesser – an occupational hazard as a woman, as a human, as an administrator. And if it’s Steve Rogers doing the looking down, well, she supposed it was going to happen sooner or later. “He knows the Avengers, inside and out; he knows his way around an intelligence operation; he’s an asset to be used.”

“Just like me.”

It’s supposed to be a barb, and yes, it stings. But Maria doesn’t hesitate. Steve’s feelings are not her responsibility and they never have been. “Just like you. But not used the way HYDRA used him. He’ll always have the choice, and I’m pretty sure that if he dug in his heels, even you won’t be able to move him.”

He turns from the window at last, a hint of a smile on his face. “You’re probably right.”

“You know I am.”

A tilt of the golden head is all the apology she imagines she’ll get. Until he crosses to stand in front of her desk. “I’m sorry for going on the offensive.”

“It was rather offensive.” Maria angles for the play on words, watches him wince. “Now, if there’s nothing else, Captain, I’ve got a busy morning—”

“I’m seeing Sharon Carter.”

Is there a hint of apology in his voice, in the set of his shoulders, in the cant of his head? If there is, Maria ignores it.

“Congratulations,” she says, and her voice is perfectly calm. “She’s good people.”

He nearly replies and Maria prays he won’t. After a moment, he thinks the better of whatever he was going to say, and simply leaves with a nod of the head.

She waits until the door’s sealed shut behind him before spinning her chair around to stare out the window at the training grounds beyond. The breath she exhales shudders a little.

An apology wasn’t necessary in her opinion. Maria was the one who drew the lines between them and refused to engage. And even the ultimate soldier eventually got tired of bashing his head and his heart against a brick wall.

So. At least that’s done now.

 

The perimeter warning on the townhouse isn’t entirely unexpected – Natasha likes arriving in unexpected ways, and the sensors are configured to flash up a notification.

Except that the notification that flashes up isn’t for Romanoff.

He swings in under the window sash with the swift economy of the assassin, and the easy grace of Bucky Barnes. And if the plastic bag of _pho_ – beef noodle soup – and it’s herbs and vegetables looks incongruous in the metal hand, the expression in his eyes is steady as he closes the sash by touch alone.

“You didn’t have lunch.”

“I didn’t exactly have time.”

He puts the bag down on the table. “I’ll get a bowl.” And he’s out the door and off to the kitchens before Maria can protest that she doesn’t need to be reminded of mealtimes, like a child who’s too involved in playing a game to eat.

When he comes back with the bowl and utensils, Maria glances up from her tablet. “Did you get assigned messenger boy, then?”

“No. But you forgot to have lunch, and I figured you’d probably skip dinner, too.”

His hands – both metal and human – move briskly about the preparation of the dish, clearly familiar with the process.

“What if I wanted a Big Mac?”

“I’ll run out and get you one and eat this myself.”

Maria watches as he pours the soup over the meat, noodles, bean sprouts, and herbs. “Did you wash your hands?”

“Yes, mom.” He pushes the bowl over to her, hands her the chopsticks and an Asian soup spoon. “Now, eat.”

What else can she say but, “Yes, mom.”

He sits down in the chair at the next desk, stretches out his legs and watches her politely and without pause until she starts eating. Then he relaxes a little, and Maria thinks that this is one of the weirdest meals she’s ever had in a safehouse: takeout brought to her by the Winter Soldier, who appears to have decided she needs looking after.

If it was anyone else, she’d tell them to put it in the fridge and she’ll get to it later.

Because it’s Barnes, and she figures that this is a gesture of trust, she eats.

Well, she passes him a series of reports on her tablet, and tells him to read and give her his assessment of the situation. _Then_ she eats.

 

“Why’d you turn Steve down?”

They’re thirty-thousand feet above sea level, travelling at nearly five hundred miles per hour when Barnes springs the question on her.

There’s a moment when Maria thinks, _what the fuck_ , and a moment when Maria thinks, _dammit, Natasha_ , and then the moment when Maria says, “Where’d you hear that?”

“Wilson.”

She’s going to kill Sam the next time she sees him. Since he’s not here right now, she settles for noting, “And they say women gossip.”

“Call it curious; I’m trying to think of a reason a woman would turn Captain America down.”

There are a lot of ways she can answer the implied question. She goes with, “He didn’t ask me in the first place?”

“And if he had?” Maria doesn’t answer, just stares out the front windshield at the clouds the Quinjet is skimming on the way home. Beside her, Barnes snorts. “You froze him out, didn’t you? Gave him the cold shoulder.”

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to. Barnes continues. “He wouldn’t have known what to do with that; not that he knew what to do with Carter – either of them.”

“Do I really need to know this?” But her voice is sharp – a little too sharp – and Barnes is sensitive enough to hear it.

“Sorry.”

“You should be.” Maria checks the gauges for something to do, to think about whether she’s going to answer Barnes more fully. She wants to explain herself, but that means being...personal. And she’s tried so hard not to be personal.

Still, if the man who was the Winter Soldier can’t understand, there’s nobody else.

“Do you remember the blonde the other week who was trying to catch your eye at the gala?”

“Blue dress, silver shoes, Veronica Lake hair. Hard to forget.”

“But when she made a play, you turned her down.”

“Maybe I prefer to do my own chasing. Or at least some of it. Sexist as it is in these times.” He glances sideways at her when she lets the silence go without interruption, grey eyes a little impatient. His metal arm turns so the palm is face up, the vibranium joints clicking against each other with soft patter. “You know why I turned her down, Hill.”

She lets silence fill the cockpit for a while before she says, “Not all scars are as obvious as your arm, Barnes.”

–

The ‘icer’ rifle is _beautiful_. Beautiful and elegant, well-designed and  well-considered. Her fingers stroke the scope – set to auto-range but with a manual option as necessary – and she fits her hand into the grip and the trigger, palm-print clearance only, even though it’s not set to take her hand—

With a click and a hum, the rifle comes online – it _is_ set to take her hand. Startled, Maria lifts her finger off the trigger, and checks the safety just in case.

It’s a beautiful weapon – the modified icer rifle, straight out of the new S.H.I.E.L.D labs, for when a long-distance shot wants a no-kill. Although there’ll be some serious bruising at the impact site – a soft-shell bullet is involved, carrying a gel that’s been supercharged inside the rifle before ejection: the shot that will fry a person's system and take them out.

And death is a possibility; death is always a possibility when firing things at people.

“Hey, Hill.”

“Hm?”

“You ever look at a guy like that, better be prepared to marry him.”

She gives Sam her best death glare, which would singe his wings if they weren’t metal, and runs off him like water off the proverbial duck’s back. But Steve looks away, and Barnes’ tilt at the corner of his mouth seems rueful. “I’ll keep that in mind, Wilson. So, gentlemen, is the mission still a go, or were you planning to forgo it for watching me work the rifle?”

That gets them moving fast enough. But when Barnes passes her on the way out, she taps his shoulder and indicates the rifle in its carry-case. “Thanks. For this.”

“I figure if you’re on the scope, you might as well have the best.” His smile is brief and carries just a hint of Lieutenant Barnes’ charm from those long-ago days. "It matches you, you know. Sleek and dangerous."

She snorts, because she thinks he's joking - and then she looks him in the eye. His smile fades, and so does hers. He opens his mouth to say something and-

"Hey, Barnes? You joining us for this cakewalk or not?"

He glances out down the ramp, hesitates, then flicks another gaze at her and walks off down the ramp.

As Maria gets into position and sets up the sighting, she tries not to linger on what it might mean – this isn't high school, for fuck's sake. She’s an experienced agent, capable, competent, and trusted. She has a mission to monitor and a field to keep clear. She's not going to think of what it might mean when Bucky Barnes is trying to give her compliments. It's probably just him being polite anyway

She won't think about it. And she doesn't.

The operation goes as expected when being executed by Captain America, the Falcon, and the Winter Soldier, which is to say, successful but with a more-than-fair share of battered enemy, and six men down with a long-distance icer shot. And Maria may not have either wings, or super-speed, but she makes it back to the stealth-cloaked Quinjet before the biomagnetic sweeps begin, the end of the rifle case kept from banging against her hip by her left arm as she jogs through the dull underbrush and up the Quinjet ramp.

She sees Rogers first – the shield is a natural eye-catcher – but it’s Wilson who lifts a hand to greet her. A moment later, Barnes comes to meet her at the top of the ramp. “Good work."

"You, too," she tells him, but lets her gaze drift to Steve and Sam behind him. "Ready to go?"

"Whenever you are."

“Lift it,” she calls through to the pilot, even as she unslings the rifle from her shoulder and stows it in the underseat lockers. Then she seats herself next to Sam in the cabin, buckling in for what's going to be a rough ride through a storm cell on the way home.

Glancing across the cabin at Barnes, she meets his eye and the brief flash of his smile.


End file.
